BIL pissed that we won't be at his wedding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. I'm not sure that a grown woman who plans a birthday party for herself so far out that people have no way to make excuses and have to commit to a lavish party (with a band, no less) months in advance--then when that doesn't work out, then requires family members to commit (again, months in advance) to yet anothe weekend in her honor, is any less narcissistic than the BIL here.

If you cannot see the difference between these 2 situations then I have to question your mental competence.

DP. I see the difference and think a birthday, even a milestone birthday, is less important than a wedding, even a second one.

If the couple was so determined to have family at the wedding they should have given more notice. They planned solely according to their convenience. Others don’t have to jump to their tunes.

+1 it was very important to me to have extended family at my wedding. We have family scattered across the country and in other countries. We provided almost a year of notice, once we booked the venue we shared the date. People who want others' attendance plan enough in advance to make that feasible, especially when there are no extenuating circumstances. Nothing about this is novel or complicated.

[Anonymous]

It's perfectly reasonable not to attend the wedding. Yet, the OP doesn't come off well so it's hard to feel sympathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are being just as ridiculous as your BIL. He is crazy for expecting people to attend a wedding in Australia with 4 weeks notice. You are crazy for being so inflexible. Yes, dinner with family is important and, yes, it can be difficult to get everyone together at the same time. But there are holidays coming up or you could reschedule for another weekend in the future. You need to compromise.

She doesn’t need to do anything she doesn’t want to. BIL could have picked a more suitable date. The misogyny is strong here.

OP, no one took the bait on your original two misogyny references. Let it go.

LOL, not OP. Don’t be mad that multiple people think you’re nuts.

[Anonymous]

Op should let she go. Getting to spend time with his brothers will be nice. Who knows when there will be another opportunity. Op can enjoy time with her kids. A good compromise

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally I’d be very annoyed if I had scheduled air travel to see my parents and they bailed on me to fly to Australia at a couple weeks notice for a wedding.

+1
Some of you with adult children don't seem to realize how difficult to plan and special these times with your adult kids home are!

+1

Especially when the Adult kids are just starting out. Many have to plan far in advance to get vacation time off. It's different than being 45-50 and having a ton of flexibility at your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of the posters saying how the BIL is “family” and family is more important than anything else, do they not consider adult children family? When your kids are grown and scattered, it is not often that you can all be together, regardless of whether it’s a parent’s birthday or whatever occasion. To me, that family has significantly more importance than extended family.

I agree!!!! We cherish the times when we are together with all of our kids (3 kids, 2 launched in different cities (think 2 flights away) and one still in college also 2 flights and 2500 miles away). So it takes a lot of planning to manage getting everyone together somewhere. If it's not at home, it also means a AirBnB/VRBO rental which often cannot be cancelled less than 1 month out. A funeral of a close relative or friend is the only real reason I would consider adjusting our planned, well scheduled gathering as a family. It's okay to say no to invitations if it doesn't fit your schedule, even if its family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. I'm not sure that a grown woman who plans a birthday party for herself so far out that people have no way to make excuses and have to commit to a lavish party (with a band, no less) months in advance--then when that doesn't work out, then requires family members to commit (again, months in advance) to yet anothe weekend in her honor, is any less narcissistic than the BIL here.

If you cannot see the difference between these 2 situations then I have to question your mental competence.

DP. I see the difference and think a birthday, even a milestone birthday, is less important than a wedding, even a second one.

If the couple was so determined to have family at the wedding they should have given more notice. They planned solely according to their convenience. Others don’t have to jump to their tunes.

+1 it was very important to me to have extended family at my wedding. We have family scattered across the country and in other countries. We provided almost a year of notice, once we booked the venue we shared the date. People who want others' attendance plan enough in advance to make that feasible, especially when there are no extenuating circumstances. Nothing about this is novel or complicated.

And even with that, I bet you were reasonable and didn't feel bad if someone said No to attending. But I bet you got many people to come who you wanted there because you gave adequate notice for planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. I'm not sure that a grown woman who plans a birthday party for herself so far out that people have no way to make excuses and have to commit to a lavish party (with a band, no less) months in advance--then when that doesn't work out, then requires family members to commit (again, months in advance) to yet anothe weekend in her honor, is any less narcissistic than the BIL here.

If you cannot see the difference between these 2 situations then I have to question your mental competence.

DP. I see the difference and think a birthday, even a milestone birthday, is less important than a wedding, even a second one.

I agree with you . . . if the events are being held at neighboring venues. They aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally I’d be very annoyed if I had scheduled air travel to see my parents and they bailed on me to fly to Australia at a couple weeks notice for a wedding.

+1
Some of you with adult children don't seem to realize how difficult to plan and special these times with your adult kids home are!

+1

Especially when the Adult kids are just starting out. Many have to plan far in advance to get vacation time off. It's different than being 45-50 and having a ton of flexibility at your job.

I may be a little off base here but, SAY NO to the invite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there any chance to do the dinner another date? I see the party you can't move, but maybe the dinner you can. I have always regretted the close family wedding I couldn't attend.

I kind of agree. If this is about your second birthday celebration (btw, this is pretty excessive sounding…) then just go. If you can’t afford it then don’t go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can easily tell from this thread which posters believed that the sun, moon and stars rotated around their weddings.

Exactly, I would not dream that other people would drop everything to come to my wedding. It is not that important - personally I don't give a shit.

I wouldn't dream that anyone would drop everything and come to my wedding either, but if I invited someone and they took the time to tell me they weren't coming to my wedding because they had a dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant, I would certainly feel some kind of way about that.

OP's husband should have just said "so sorry we can't make it, take lots of pictures" and kept it moving. Telling the whole family that none of his family is attending the wedding because she has a birthday party the week before and a fancy dinner reservation the week after is . . . either intentionally rude or simply foolish.

It is NOt a "dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant"! It's "dinner with all of our grown kids in ONe place that we have planned for months to make happen. Most had to fly to get there and arrange their vacation/work schedule to make it happen" dinner to celebrate mom.

OP, how many of the other posts are actually you? I kind of suspected. Take the whole wedding out of the picture--and entire two weekends that simply cannot be changed to celebrate your birthday is the height of self-centeredness and immaturity. Seriously, go volunteer or something.

I'm the PP (not the OP). It doesn't matter if it's bday celebration or not. It's planned events with friends and family, just like the BIL wedding. Except OP actually planned in advance (not 4 weeks out) and isn't expecting others to change/cacnel their plans to attend. When you plan in advance, people get to choose if they want to attend.

See, but this is the thing: people like OP deliberately plan many many months in advance so people simply don't have any excuses. They have to commit. My in-laws are like this. They start demanding we commit to visits, trips, anything. We have college and young adult kids and we finally just say, sorry, we just can't commit that far in advance--our kids' internships, jobs, school schedules, etc. just aren't set yet. OP is like them. She locked all this stuff in months in advance--for her birthday. Very very self-centered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can easily tell from this thread which posters believed that the sun, moon and stars rotated around their weddings.

Exactly, I would not dream that other people would drop everything to come to my wedding. It is not that important - personally I don't give a shit.

I wouldn't dream that anyone would drop everything and come to my wedding either, but if I invited someone and they took the time to tell me they weren't coming to my wedding because they had a dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant, I would certainly feel some kind of way about that.

OP's husband should have just said "so sorry we can't make it, take lots of pictures" and kept it moving. Telling the whole family that none of his family is attending the wedding because she has a birthday party the week before and a fancy dinner reservation the week after is . . . either intentionally rude or simply foolish.

It is NOt a "dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant"! It's "dinner with all of our grown kids in ONe place that we have planned for months to make happen. Most had to fly to get there and arrange their vacation/work schedule to make it happen" dinner to celebrate mom.

OP, how many of the other posts are actually you? I kind of suspected. Take the whole wedding out of the picture--and entire two weekends that simply cannot be changed to celebrate your birthday is the height of self-centeredness and immaturity. Seriously, go volunteer or something.

I'm the PP (not the OP). It doesn't matter if it's bday celebration or not. It's planned events with friends and family, just like the BIL wedding. Except OP actually planned in advance (not 4 weeks out) and isn't expecting others to change/cacnel their plans to attend. When you plan in advance, people get to choose if they want to attend.

See, but this is the thing: people like OP deliberately plan many many months in advance so people simply don't have any excuses. They have to commit. My in-laws are like this. They start demanding we commit to visits, trips, anything. We have college and young adult kids and we finally just say, sorry, we just can't commit that far in advance--our kids' internships, jobs, school schedules, etc. just aren't set yet. OP is like them. She locked all this stuff in months in advance--for her birthday. Very very self-centered.

You are reaching quite far with your criticism of OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the replies. It helps to get some outside perspective. Just to add some more context: the birthday dinner actually feels like a more important event to me than the party, because I'll have all my children around me - something that happens infrequently because of their busy lives (and they have already booked their flights home). So, to me, it's more than "a dinner reservation".
My husband is the party person and persuaded me that we should host a celebration for our friends. Believe me, I don't usually want a fuss over my birthday, but when plans started rolling I started to really look forward to the events.

I don't want to sway my husband either way - and when he first heard about his brother's wedding he was quick to say that we had plans and, sorry, we couldn't go. But the pressure he's getting from his brothers and father to go is really eating at him. On one hand, if he goes, I'll be resentful that they were so dismissive of the plans we had made. But if he doesn't go, there could be long-held resentment from them. I know I could be the bigger person here and go ahead with the family dinner, without him, but I find the thought of that, and the background to how it comes about, quite upsetting.

How long will your kids be in town and if you go to Australia for the wedding will they still be in town when you get back if you were to go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can easily tell from this thread which posters believed that the sun, moon and stars rotated around their weddings.

Exactly, I would not dream that other people would drop everything to come to my wedding. It is not that important - personally I don't give a shit.

I wouldn't dream that anyone would drop everything and come to my wedding either, but if I invited someone and they took the time to tell me they weren't coming to my wedding because they had a dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant, I would certainly feel some kind of way about that.

OP's husband should have just said "so sorry we can't make it, take lots of pictures" and kept it moving. Telling the whole family that none of his family is attending the wedding because she has a birthday party the week before and a fancy dinner reservation the week after is . . . either intentionally rude or simply foolish.

It is NOt a "dinner reservation at a fancy restaurant"! It's "dinner with all of our grown kids in ONe place that we have planned for months to make happen. Most had to fly to get there and arrange their vacation/work schedule to make it happen" dinner to celebrate mom.

OP, how many of the other posts are actually you? I kind of suspected. Take the whole wedding out of the picture--and entire two weekends that simply cannot be changed to celebrate your birthday is the height of self-centeredness and immaturity. Seriously, go volunteer or something.

I'm the PP (not the OP). It doesn't matter if it's bday celebration or not. It's planned events with friends and family, just like the BIL wedding. Except OP actually planned in advance (not 4 weeks out) and isn't expecting others to change/cacnel their plans to attend. When you plan in advance, people get to choose if they want to attend.

See, but this is the thing: people like OP deliberately plan many many months in advance so people simply don't have any excuses. They have to commit. My in-laws are like this. They start demanding we commit to visits, trips, anything. We have college and young adult kids and we finally just say, sorry, we just can't commit that far in advance--our kids' internships, jobs, school schedules, etc. just aren't set yet. OP is like them. She locked all this stuff in months in advance--for her birthday. Very very self-centered.

Wow, so I think OP's post doesn't make a lot of sense, but some of us plan months in advance because we HAVE to. We have elementary school aged kids, summer camp enrollment is in February, and my PTO is limited and has to cover holiday breaks as well. If I'm taking a week off work and we're avoiding camp weeks for a trip with family I have to know before January. Time off and childcare gets plotted months in advance. That's how it works.

My in laws all have no kids, adult/home schooled kids, and/or SAHPs, so none of them have ever had to plan for summer childcare or coordinate PTO for school breaks. But having to plan for a gigantic extended family summer rental before MAY is quite reasonable. Not everyone is flexible until the last minute.

[Anonymous]

I really don't understand why OP didn't lead with "nonrefundable deposits and flights" rather than "my birthday celebrations." If the kids are truly flying in from other cities, why harp on the dinner reservation? Are they really coming from that far and taking PTO or is that a later addition?